Castillo Linda - Outsider

She made a bitter sound that was part laugh, part growl. “You are a holier-than-thou-art piece of work, aren’t you?” Dropping the bag to the floor, she moved closer to me, jabbed her finger in my face. “You have no right to judge me. I’m the one who brought you in. I made you what you are. I got you off the street. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be waiting tables at some dump.”

The fury came with such force that I was dizzy with it. I wasn’t a violent person, but the urge to strike her was powerful. In that instant, I thought about my mamm. I thought about my sister, my datt, my brother, and I wondered what they would think of this callous, foulmouthed English woman. I wondered what they would think of me for being part of this, and for the first time in a long time, I felt ashamed.

I stared at her, seeing more than I wanted to see. Things I’d ignored for months because I didn’t have the courage to face the truth. “I’ve been hearing things about your cop friends, Gina,” I told her. “I’ve been hearing things about you, too.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll be sure to let them know.” Looking at me as if I were a dog that didn’t have the mental capacity to get the trick right, she picked up the canvas bag. “Me? I don’t really give a damn.”

I got to my feet, hating it that my legs were shaking. I got in her face anyway. “You need to return the cash.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, for God’s sake. What are you going to go do? Go all Amish on me?”

“If you don’t return that cash, I will. You won’t like the outcome.”

A flicker of something I couldn’t identify in her eyes. Instead of moving away, she stepped closer until her face was inches from mine. “I got the money and that car fair and square. I worked for it. I earned it. I risked my life for it. If you don’t believe me, you do what you need to do. But let me tell you this, Kate. You take all of those unfounded suspicions of yours to anyone inside the department and you’ll find yourself out of a job so fast your head will spin.”

“If I ever see you with that kind of cash again, I will turn you in. I mean it, Gina. This is your final warning.”

After a too-long moment, she stepped away from me and hefted the strap of the canvas bag onto her shoulder. As she was walking down the hall, she shot me a withering look over her shoulder and blew me a kiss.

CHAPTER 22

It’s ten P.M. and I’ve just tossed a couple chunks of oak into the wood-burning stove when I hear the backdoor slam. The children have already gone to bed; the house is quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. I’m missing Tomasetti, wishing I were at the farm, pondering how all of this with Gina is going to play out in the coming days.

The woman in question appears in the doorway between the mudroom and the kitchen, drawing me from my reverie. She’s wearing Adam’s coat. There’s snow in her hair, on the shoulders of the coat. Her cheeks glow red from the cold.

“I hate Ohio,” she announces as she stomps snow from her feet. “I swear to God when this is over, I’m moving to Hawaii.”

“I take it the snow has begun.”

“Coming down like a son of a bitch.”

“I didn’t realize you’d gone out.”

“Left something in my truck.”

Turning to her, I raise a brow. “I don’t recall seeing anything of importance in your truck.”

“This, my friend, transcends mere importance.” With great flourish, she pulls a bottle of Gentleman Jack from an inside coat pocket. “The cure for cabin fever and a troubled soul rolled into one.”

Despite my efforts, I can’t quite keep a straight face. “It has been my experience that Jack Daniels is no gentleman.”

“Gentlemen are overrated,” she says breezily. “But Jack is smooth and warm with just enough burn to hold my interest.”

“I hate to point out the obvious, but we should probably keep our wits about us.”

“My wits don’t even kick in until that first swallow hits my brain.” She strides to the table and sets down the bottle. “No one in their right mind is going to be out on a night like tonight.”

I try not to think about the odds of that as I wipe the counters and shove the bread into the bread box. I hear Gina return to the mudroom to remove her boots and hang the coat. I know her too well not to be a tad concerned about the bottle of whiskey. She’s responsible to a degree, but I know intimately the part of her that is not. Nestled deep in the heart of all that equanimity resides a wild streak as long as the Ohio River. I’ve seen her take solace in alcohol. I’ve seen her use it to escape pain. And I’ve seen her imbibe for the sheer pleasure of it. With everything that’s going on, not the least of which is the fact that we are in an Amish home, I don’t want her taking things too far.

She joins me at the kitchen table. Mismatched glasses containing three fingers of whiskey sit on the tabletop in front of us. Too much for me. Not enough for her. The only sounds are the hiss of the propane lamp and the quiet tinkle-tap of snow against the window. It’s a thoughtful, comfortable silence. The kind that doesn’t need to be filled with meaningless words or chatter, though there is much to be said.

After a moment, she picks up her glass and raises it. “To troubled waters.”

I clink my glass against hers. “And ten years gone.”

Eyes holding, remembrance flitting between us, we sip. I’ve drunk more than my share of whiskey over the years, but I’ve never been a fan. To my credit, it’s been a while since I imbibed. Tonight, with the past hovering between us and the road ahead laden with a gauntlet of unknowns, the whiskey goes down with surprising ease.

“I always knew you’d do well for yourself,” Gina says after a moment. “You’ve kept your nose clean. Worked hard. Now, you’re a small-town chief of police. You’ve got a decent man. A future. An unblemished reputation.”

“Not quite unblemished,” I tell her.

She holds my gaze for the span of several heartbeats, but she doesn’t ask the obvious question. She’s one of only a handful of people who know what happened when I was fourteen years old. I told her a few months after we met, and to her credit she never brought up the matter again.

“You know what I mean,” she says.

Because I do, I look down at the glass in my hands, saying nothing.

“I’ve always believed the best measure of success isn’t where you are at any certain moment, but how far you’ve come from where you started.” She looks at me and nods. “You, my friend, have come a long way.”

The old affection stirs in my chest. “Yeah, well, someone gave me some good advice once.”

“You would have gotten your GED and found your place even if I hadn’t hounded you.”

“I wouldn’t have gotten into law enforcement.”

She grins. “I guess that’s one thing I did right.” Another short silence and then she says, “It’s ironic, though. I was the one who knew what I wanted to be. And yet you were always the better cop.”

Once upon a time I would have argued; now, any such argument would be disingenuous. Somewhere along the line she took a wrong turn. While she might be able to find her way back and salvage some trace of her career, she’ll never work in law enforcement again.

“I should have stopped you,” I tell her.

“Oh, come on. When I have my sights set on fucking up, no one gets in the way.”

“If I’d been there,” I say, “I never would have let you go down the road you did.”

She nods, regret reflecting in her eyes. “You left at exactly the right time. You were smart. Got out or else you might’ve been sucked into the mess, too.”